Conservative Trends

James Glassman looks at the larger political trends in the US. For him, the outcome of this one election is not as important as the larger trend of the US towards Republicans.

Like most political epochs, this one is deeply rooted not in ideology but in demographics, economics and sociology. Republicans have come to power for three reasons: First, the generation that suffered through the Depression and saw the Democratic Party as savior is dying out. Hard-core New Dealers are being replaced as voters with a generation that grew up with Reagan.

Second, Americans are growing richer and becoming investors, sharing in the ownership of businesses, not merely seeing themselves as oppressed "labor" to overbearing "management." Half of all U.S. families own stock.

Third, a counter-cultural revolution, rooted in Generation X, has developed in reaction to the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, which live on, benignly, in art but not in social policy. Crime and welfare dependency have dropped, religion is on the rise, drug use is declining, kids like their parents. The technology boom, part of this revolution, is based on libertarian (free-market conservative) ideals and entrepreneurship.